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Yusupov Palace

Felix Yusupov murdered Rasputin, the notorious advisor to Tzar Nicholas II, in the basement of this palace in 1916 – which is supposedly one of the acts that brought about the Russian Revolution.

The pale yellow building was built in 1770 but added to many times over the years before it became the home of the vastly wealthy Yusupov family in 1830. The Yusupovs were big collectors of beautiful things, objet d'art, paintings and statues, but these were confiscated in the revolution and now the house is predominantly a museum to Rasputin's grizzly demise. Yusupov tells the story like this: he and the Grand Duke Pavlovich invited Rasputin to dine and fed him cakes and wine laced with enough cyanide to kill at least five men. When that appeared to be having no effect on the intended victim, Yusupov drew his gun and shot him in the back. But even after being shot three more times in the back at close range Rasputin was still able to stand and attempt to leave though the courtyard – now a kindergarten – so they clubbed his head with iron bars then wrapped him in a blanket and threw him in the river. When an autopsy was performed on the body it was found that he died of hypothermia. Now that story definitely deserves a museum.